Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — At sundown on Thursday, May 21, Jews around the world will start the two-day holiday (which lasts only one day in Israel) of Shavuot. Also known as the Festival of Weeks because it marks the completion of the counting of the Omer period — which is 49 days long, or seven weeks of seven days—Shavuot is one of the Jewish calendar’s shalosh regalim pilgrimage holidays. Unlike the other two pilgrimage festivals — Passover, which is marked through the retelling of the Exodus story at the se...
(JNS) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated on Wednesday Washington’s stance that Iran must not obtain a nuclear weapon, adding that he would welcome a more active role from China in helping resolve the Mideast conflict. “Iran is an example of a bilateral issue that is irreconcilable. Their clerical regime wants a nuclear weapon and the world, led by President [Donald] Trump, says that can’t happen,” Rubio told Fox News aboard Air Force One while en route to Beijing to join the U.S. delegation and the president for the first diplomat...
(JNS) — Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday lashed out at those who mark so-called Nakba Day, screenshotting an image from a video posted by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “The Nakba was the result of the Arab rejection of the U.N. Partition Plan [of 1947] and decision to launch war to annihilate the State of Israel,” the ministry tweeted. It added, “You can’t start war, openly vow to ‘throw the Jews into the sea,’ and then pretend being the victim of the conflict you started. The real forgotten victims are the 850,000 Jewish refugees ex...
(JNS) — Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday accused The New York Times of publishing “one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press.” “In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused,” the MFA tweeted, referencing the Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT columnist who wrote “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians.” The opinion peace alleged that, despite an absence of evidence, the Jewish state utilizes sexual violence...
(JNS) — Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, on Saturday condemned a pro-Palestinian march in New York as “blatant antisemitism disguised as activism,” saying demonstrators chanted slogans calling for Israel’s destruction and to “Globalize the intifada” under a “Nakba Day” banner. In a video posted on X, a woman is heard leading the crowd in the slogan “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” appearing to condone acts of violent terrorism directed against Israeli civilians and soldiers. According to Getty im...
(JNS)— Israel is in “full coordination” with Washington on Iran and is preparing for all possible scenarios, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday as he convened his Security Cabinet. “We are maintaining continuous contact with our friends in the United States,” said Netanyahu according to his office, adding that he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump “almost on a daily basis. My people and his people are in daily contact as well, including today. And I will also speak with President Trump later tonight.” There were “no...
JNS) — Prospects for peace and reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians hinge on the Palestinian Authority ending its “pay-for-slay” program, which provides monthly stipends for life to convicted terrorists and the families of attackers, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. “If you want reconciliation, peace, partnership, pay-for-slay must stop,” a ministry spokesperson said in a video posted to X, arguing that the payments “reward terror and incentivize future terror. “It’s the opposite of educating for peace,” the spokesman...
(JNS) — The Iranian regime’s response to the latest U.S. proposal to end hostilities was “totally unacceptable,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday. “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘representatives.’ I don’t like it — totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported earlier on Sunday that Tehran’s response to Washington’s plan had been submitted to Pakistani mediators. According to the regime outlet, Iran’s response sought to end “the war in the re...
(JNS) - A rare sight, a halo surrounding the sun, was seen in Israel's northern skies on Saturday, May 2. The striking halo was reportedly spotted by residents in the city of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee Panhandle and at Shavei Zion beach near Nahariya in the Western Galilee. Dr. Amir Givati, director of the Israel Meteorological Service, told Ynet that the phenomenon is the result of high-altitude clouds typical of heatwave conditions. Due to their high altitudes of four to five miles in the...
(JNS) - Israeli journalist Amit Segal shared video footage on Monday, May 4, showing rare May snowfall on Mount Hermon, noting that it marked the first snowfall on the mountain's upper slopes this late in the season in 15 years. A clip posted to his X account showed the popular northern resort blanketed in white as an unseasonably cold front swept through the region....
(JNS) — U.S. Central Command said early on Monday that it would begin supporting “Project Freedom” to ensure the free flow of commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global trade route. The operation, directed by U.S. President Donald Trump, aims to safeguard merchant vessels transiting the strait, through which U.S. Central Command noted that roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and significant volumes of fuel and fertilizer pass. CENTCOM said the mission will include guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraf...
(JNS) — Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s book, When We See You Again, has reached the top spot on The New York Times nonfiction hardcover best sellers list, a week after its national publication. Hamas terrorists executed Goldberg-Polin’s son Hersh Goldberg-Polin in cold blood in an underground tunnel in Gaza, 330 days after he was taken hostage from the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. The book is “a searing portrait of a mother’s grief and strength in the wake of unthinkable tragedy,” publisher Random House writes. Goldberg-Polin is an Ameri...
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Monday that the United States must moderate its demands on the Islamic Republic, warning that Washington “cannot use the language of threats and force.” He said “our priority is to end the war,” urged the “other side” to abandon “excessive demands” and reiterated Tehran’s claim that it is the “guardian and protector” of the Strait of Hormuz. “The international community must hold the United States and the Zionist regime accountable for imposing insecurity on this waterway and for creati...
(JNS) - A jurist who reviews anti-terrorism legislation for the British government and the head of the opposition called last week for a ban on anti-Israel rallies in the near future following a series of serious antisemitic attacks. Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terror legislation, said the government should consider a "moratorium" on the marches following the April 29 stabbing of two Jews in London's Golders Green neighborhood, allegedly by a Somalia-born British citizen named Ess...
(JNS) - The U.S. State Department approved a possible sale of $992.4 million worth of laser-guided rockets, or "advanced precision kill weapon system" and relevant equipment, Foggy Bottom said on Friday. Israel sought 10,000 of the APKWS equipment, which is made by BAE Systems, the State Department said. "The secretary of state has determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to Israel of the above defense articles and defense services...
(JNS) — Air-raid sirens blared across the Western Galilee on Monday morning, sending thousands of civilians scrambling for bomb shelters as Iranian-backed Hezbollah launched a drone attack from Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that it fired an interceptor missile toward a “target that was launched from Lebanon,” but said it subsequently lost contact with the UAV. “No injuries were reported,” the military stated, adding that additional missile alerts in the north were activated “due to concerns of falling interception debris.” La...
(JNS) — Air-raid sirens blared across the Western Galilee on Monday morning, sending thousands of civilians scrambling for bomb shelters as Iranian-backed Hezbollah launched a drone attack from Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that it fired an interceptor missile toward a “target that was launched from Lebanon,” but said it subsequently lost contact with the UAV. “No injuries were reported,” the military stated, adding that additional missile alerts in the north were activated “due to concerns of falling interception debris.” La...
(JNS) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog last week visited the Jerusalem College of Technology, where he expressed his deep appreciation for combining Judaism with scholarly work. “The unique integration that JCT represents—between Torah and science—is a tremendous asset for the State of Israel, especially in a time of division,” he was quoted as saying in a press release by the institution of higher education. JCT is home to approximately 4,500 religious and Haredi students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, managemen...
(JNS) — Israel’s population has reached 10.244 million as the country marks its 78th Independence Day, according to data released on Sunday by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Of the total population, 7.97 million are Jews and others (76 percent), 2.15 million are Arabs (21 percent) and 296,000 are foreign residents (2.9 percent), according to the figures. Israel’s population has grown by 146,000 since its last Independence Day, registering an increase of 1.4 percent, the Bureau noted. Durin...
(JNS) - "Operation Roaring Lion" against Iranian nuclear sites fulfilled the Jewish state's promise to prevent a second Holocaust, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday night. Had the Israeli and U.S. militaries failed to act, "the names Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan and Parchin might have been remembered eternally in infamy, just like Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek and Sobibor," the prime minister said in Hebrew remarks aired during the state ceremony for Holocaust Martyrs' and...
(JNS) — Members of the Jewish community in New York City gathered on Sunday for an unveiling event of a bench in Central Park commemorating the hostages kidnapped into Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel’s south. The bench, named “Hostages Bench,” is also dedicated to those who fought to release the hostages, to those who lost their lives during the Hamas-led invasion into Israel and in the war that ensued since then, to the families of the hostages, and to those who survived captivity, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Monday with Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, conveying his “deep sorrow over the tragic loss of four lives” in an Iranian missile attack that targeted the city the previous night. “The most important point that came up again in our conversation is one simple principle, an iron rule: Anyone who follows the guidelines of the [Israel Defense Forces] Home Front Command and stays in a protected space has almost no chance of being harmed,” Netanyahu said in a video statement following the call. “I ask...
(JNS) — The National Library of Israel has uncovered a rare handwritten Passover Haggadah published in the 1880s containing a Judeo-Persian poem dedicated to Lady Judith Montefiore (1784-1862), highlighting the far-reaching influence of the Montefiore family across the Jewish world, according to a press release published on Thursday. Discovered within the library’s collections ahead of Passover, the manuscript includes instructions in Judeo-Persian for conducting the Seder and was bound tog...
(JNS) - Israel's Foreign Ministry on Thursday accused European countries of standing on the sidelines during the war with Iran while benefiting from the weakening of the Islamic Republic's military capabilities. In an X post, the ministry shared a CNN segment with NATO chief Mark Rutte, who praised U.S. President Donald Trump for degrading Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, which he said was "really very important for your and my safety, here in the U.S., in Europe, in the Middle East." "This is how it always is in Europe: they...
(JNS) - Israel is home to some 111,000 Holocaust survivors and victims of antisemitic persecution, according to new government estimates released ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026. Women make up about 63 percent of survivors, most of whom are in their 80s and 90s. Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday that the global Jewish population stood at 15.8 million at the start of 2025, including 7.2 million Jews in Israel, or roughly 45 percent of the total, and 6.3 million in the...
